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You receive an "Either the specified account is not valid or the account's domain could not be contacted" error message when you try to add a node to a server cluster in Windows 2000

Article ID: 827486 - View products that this article applies to.

SYMPTOMS

When you enter the Cluster service account credentials in the Cluster Service Configuration Wizard to add an additional cluster node to an existing server cluster, you receive the following error message:

Either the specified account is not valid or the account's domain could not be contacted. Check that the user and domain names are correctly specified.

In this scenario, you have verified that you entered the credentials correctly and that the user account is a valid user account.

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CAUSE

This problem occurs if all the following conditions are true:

You reconfigured the Cluster service account on the server cluster.
You specified the new Cluster service account in the user principal name (UPN) format. For example, you specified an account name that is similar to the following:
accountname@example.com

This problem may occur if you locate and then click the new domain account when you configure a new account for the Cluster service. When you click the domain account, it appears in the UPN format. When you add an additional cluster node to a server cluster, the Cluster service account information is obtained from the first cluster node. The Cluster Service Configuration Wizard expects this account information to be in the network basic input/output system (NetBIOS) format. For example, the Cluster Service Configuration Wizard expects this account information to appear similar to the following:

domain\accountname

If the Cluster service account information on the first cluster node is specified in the UPN format, the Cluster Service Configuration Wizard cannot resolve the user account information with a domain controller.

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RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, modify the Cluster service account information on the first cluster node. To do this, follow these steps:

Click Start, click Run, type services.msc, and then click OK.
Right-click Cluster Service, and then click Properties.
Click the Log On tab, and then type the user account name in the NetBIOS format. For example, type the user account in the domain\accountname format.
Type the account password in the Password box and in the Confirm password box, click OK, and then click OK when you receive the following message:
The new logon name will not take effect until you stop and restart the service.
Restart the Cluster service.
Join the additional cluster node to the server cluster.

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STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section of this article.

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MORE INFORMATION

For additional information about how to troubleshoot Cluster service account issues, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

269229

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/269229/ )

How to manually re-create the Cluster service account

272129

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/272129/ )

Cluster service does not start on "joining" node in Windows 2000 cluster

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